


distort (the first time)

by ast_roha



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: But only if you squint, M/M, One Shot, changbin pines like crazy, changlix, minsung - Freeform, theres a festival envolved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:13:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25894972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ast_roha/pseuds/ast_roha
Summary: changbin's life is... well, it's not much. but one night when chan drags him and his friends down to a college festival, there's finally something new: an infatuation. an infatuation with a stranger he saw for a millisecond and from a far distance, but an infatuation nonetheless. now he's plagued with thoughts of this guy and it just sucks for him. ah, curse that beautiful smile.
Relationships: Han Jisung | Han/Lee Minho | Lee Know, Lee Felix/Seo Changbin
Comments: 2
Kudos: 45





	distort (the first time)

**Author's Note:**

> okay, so this is hella old, i swear. it has been sitting in my google docs for, like, two years, considering felix had orange hair at the time. i took two seconds to edit it and here you go. i'm sorry

the first time changbin saw him was on sunday night.

there was a festival being held at chan’s (and changbin’s) university and chan being the excited person he was, dragged all six of his friends along. hyunjin and jeongin were more than eager to comply and minho and seungmin didn’t seem to mind. that left him and jisung who weren’t as keen. it wasn’t that changbin was the type to prefer staying in, but more so that he had gotten in the mood to jot down some lyrics and the younger boy wanted to see what type of stuff he had come up with. 

“you always write such sad songs, changbin,” chan playfully nudged him. “maybe you’ll be able to write about something fun after tonight.”

jisung, the more joyful out of the two, jumped at the idea. he liked the messages they were portraying, but he knew it wouldn’t hurt to have a nice and upbeat song every now and then. the others nodded in agreement.

changbin eventually found himself giving in after jisung and chan screeched one too many times, and reluctantly threw on a black hoodie and black cap over his tangled and messy hair.

“thanks, hyung! just try not to forget any of those lyrics you thought of.”

but there were people everywhere on the campus, running around to get a glimpse of each stall or taking selfies under the street lights. different scents mixed together in the air and loud music began to merge with the laughter and chatter from all over the place. maybe to the large groups of friends and the multiple happy couples it was a good opportunity to make memories or forget their stress, but to changbin all it was was suffocating.

behind him, he heard jeongin ask chan to help him find the person selling cotton candy that he saw earlier. the oldest hyung clearly took a liking to him, after all jeongin was 4 years younger than him and not even in his last year of high school yet so there was a sort of responsibility he felt he had for the kid. chan followed after him, waving a quick “bye” to the rest and warning them not to get lost.

but it didn’t take long for seungmin and hyunjin to wander off in search of a nice place to eat, and then for minho and jisung to disappear too.  _ it’s alright _ he thought to himself,  _ i know my way around here anyway. _

changbin let out a sigh and pulled out his phone, opening up the notes app. maybe he could write lyrics after all. he could even make a whole song while he’s at it, titled “my friends left me and i’m salty!” by 1RACHA

he started on his way to his favourite bench, hopefully away from all the noise. his eyes never left the screen as he typed while walking, relying on muscle memory alone to take him there safely. there was a song playing -“what is love” if he remembered correctly- in the distance and a lot of high pitched squealing. changbin assumed it was a male dance group that his female classmates must have found deadly attractive.

but as he got closer and closer to where he planned to go, the music only got louder and he felt more and more crowded. it wasn’t hard for him to, seeing as he was short enough to easily get lost in the group of people pushing forward with phone cameras pointed towards the middle of the cluster.

putting his phone in his pocket with a sigh, changbin stood atop his bench that he finally found in order to get a good look at the dancers.

there was maybe ten of them, a mixture of both boys and girls, all wearing matching white clothes. changbin admitted to himself that from what he can see from their backs, they were all nicely dressed people, as for their faces, he had yet to judge. if he was being completely honest, he could pick out two or three of the performers that were either a beat too early or a beat too late. 

changbin stayed there, entranced for a couple more songs, forgetting to wonder where his friends had gone off to and following along the movement. it wasn’t until after the final song that they all took a bow and he got to see their fronts properly as each person turned around and waved at the gathered audience. from the multiple screams and yells, changbin thought he might just go deaf

his eyes trailed over them all, scanning their faces, but soon enough he found he couldn’t quite tear away from one of the boys farthest from him. the stranger was smiling widely, a kind that changbin had never seen before, and waving his hands cutely around. from the distance they had between them, changbin couldn’t exactly tell if he was as breathtaking as maybe minho or hyunjin, or as heart fluttering as jeongin, but there was something about the orange-haired boy changbin seemed to like. a lot. in that moment, he finally understood the excited girls. 

“trying to be tall?” a voice that sounded annoyingly like seungmin’s interrupted his gawking. changbin turned to look at the boy, noticing the plate of untouched food he was holding out in front of him. the rest of the group staring up at him too, cotton candy and cups in their hands. embarrassed, changbin stepped down with a scowl.

“trying to be hit?”

“hey, i still got you food.”

he took the plate out of seungmin’s hands, making sure to do it forcefully enough so that they knew he was upset they all went off without him.

pretending to carelessly look around, changbin turned, searching for the handsome performer that made his heart dance too. when no head of orange hair was to be seen, he then tried to hide his disappointment when he had concluded that the boy had probably already left.

“hyung, what are you looking for?” hyunjin asked. the rest of them looked in the direction changbin probably took too long staring at. he wasn’t the type to call people attractive or to show interest in someone he didn’t know, so changbin hid his blush behind his free hand and decided to withhold his thoughts for now.

“nothing,” he coughed into his sleeve. “let’s just go find a table.”

~

the first time changbin daydreamed of him was wednesday afternoon.

the professor was going on and on, stuff changbin already knew, and he was getting frustrated watching the clock keep him trapped. none of his friends were born in 1999 too so he was subjected to hours of lectures and classes with nobody to joke around with.

at times of boredom like those, the nineteen year old tended to drift off into his mind, but that particular day there was only one thing -one _ face _ \- that he managed to drift to. the orange-haired dancer was stuck in his head like a song playing on every radio station. changbin wasn’t complaining though, because he felt giddy imagining that smile and he hadn’t felt like that in so long.

he tried to picture the boy as much as possible. the colour of his eyes wasn’t distinct from far but changbin was 99.99% sure it was brown. he had a cute nose and pink lips. his skin was a nice slightly tanned colour, and from what changbin assumed, clear of blemishes and marks. it was too far a distance and too quick a glance that changbin couldn’t remember exact details like he wanted. all he knew was that to him, the boy was perfect. what would it have been like if changbin approached him?

the scene painted itself in his head. changbin would shyly approach him after the performance, muttering a soft “you’re a good dancer” before scratching the back of his neck. the boy would laugh, probably a tiny giggle, and ask him to speak up. changbin imagined his voice to be mesmerising and maybe towards the higher side to match the cute smile and atmosphere he remembers catching. 

but what about after that? his name was still unknown and making one up would’ve ruined the fantasy. changbin decided it didn’t matter because then the boy would slip away, having to follow after the rest of his dance crew. by the time his friends would have found him, the last part of orange would be gone from his line of sight and all that would be left is the regret of never getting his number. but as fate would have it, minho or hyunjin would recognise the description of the boy from some dance class and help him track the stranger down. after months of getting to know each other, he’d be welcomed into the group and everyone would love him. changbin would rap for him, the stranger would dance in return, it would all be great.

“hey, uhh changbin is it? can you stop clicking your pen so aggressively? i can’t hear.” changbin’s classmate whispered, pointing at the pen that seemingly made its own way into his hands. changbin nodded in apology and placed it down.

maybe it was time to snap out of this daydream about his cinderella because as far as he knew, he would never see him again. his cinderella was probably just like every other boy: shallow, rude, and a player. changbin sighed thinking about all the girls probably lined up for a chance to be that boy’s girlfriend. he felt silly for thinking about someone in this way but he just looked so captivating that it really felt like a waste to  _ not _ .

~

the first time changbin wrote about him was 2am on tuesday.

it wasn’t uncommon for changbin to be up at that hour. it had always been a time where he passes his sleepless nights filling a notebook with potential song lyrics, sometimes messaging chan who would also be awake at the ungodly hour. 

at that point in his life, changbin had already accepted defeat to thoughts of the perfect boy that have haunted him for just over a week, and it became a habit for him to disappear into the short memory of his cinderella when he had the chance. it was still a secret though, something for him only, because his friends would likely tease him about it. there were times he was tempted to bring it up in conversation, but eventually decided he didn’t want to share that perfect smile with anyone else.

“changbin, i think i’m going to head to bed now,” chan yawned through the phone. “you should get rest too.”

the younger muttered a goodnight and hung up the call. he wasn’t tired yet, but it was good that his friend was finally getting sleep instead of overworking himself like usual. there was a short clip of the music chan has worked on sent in the 3RACHA group chat and when changbin let it fill the silence of his bedroom, he found his brain whirring with lyrics that would fit. 

_ because of you i realised i don’t need sleep to see a dream _

changbin scribbled it down then read it aloud over and over again. but the more he said it, the more that orange hair appeared in his mind. he scratched two lines through it and decided to try again.

_ i would gladly trade my sleep to be tormented with thoughts of you _

no, it wasn’t helping the poor boy at all. the feeling he felt seeing that smile began to grow in him and he knew nothing he could write would cure him of it. changbin sighed loudly and shut the notebook, reminding himself to give the lyric writing responsibility to jisung for a while.

~

the first time changbin talked about him was thursday evening.

he walked alongside minho on the way home after uni, watching their mismatched steps, trying to correct the beat which fell against the pavement. his friend had always talked about whatever was on his mind and changbin had always listened. it gave their walks home a sort of rhythm that he enjoyed.

“what about you, changbin?” minho asked, nudging him slightly. “jeongin says i always talk about myself, so it’s your turn now.”

a small panic erupted in changbin’s chest. this was  _ breaking _ the rhythm. 

“what  _ about _ me, hyung?”

“who’s someone you find attractive out of our friend group?”

changbin assumed that was the topic of the conversation during the second he was living in his own head. normally he would listen to every word his friend let out, but lately he’s been a little too tired to properly function.

he thought for a minute, wondering whether it was about time that they knew he was plagued with the smile of a distant stranger. the knowledge couldn’t change the way they thought of him, or be used to bring him down lower, so what was stopping him?

“actually, there is someone,” changbin muttered, not missing the way minho raised his eyebrows in the corner of his eye. “i saw him at the festival and he was dancing.”

minho stopped walking in surprise and pulled on changbin’s arm.

“you saw him nearly two weeks ago and didn’t say anything until now?”

with a nod from changbin, minho dragged him along to the nearest bench and pushed him into sitting. a hand was placed on either side of changbin’s face and pulled close to the older, close enough to make him feel  _ very _ uncomfortable.

“hyung, what are you-”

“was he in a dance group wearing white?”

“yes. why-”

“what colour was his hair? orange, blonde, black, or brown?”

“orange. why was that one of the options?”

“what country was he from?”

“korea?”

minho furrowed his eyebrows.

“what about his voice?”

“i don’t know, it might have been high?”

he tilted his head in confusion.   
  


“did he have freckles?”

“no, not that i kno-”

minho let go of changbin and moved back, farther along the bench, and shook his head. changbin knew that meant he had no clue who this person was, even after trying to pry it out of him. it made changbin wonder if minho thought he had somewhat of an idea at first. 

the dancer gestured for him to talk, describe the boy as much as possible. the orange hair appeared back into his mind, followed shortly by everything else he imagined. it forced a shy grin on his own face.

“he had the perfect smile.”

“describe it even more,” minho laughed, poking his friend’s cheek. “you know, lip size, arch of smile, teeth showing or not, etcetera etcetera.”

“well…”

changbin held the thought of the smile, but for some reason the more he tried the blurrier the image became.  _ it was a toothy smile, right? no it might not have been. _ he skipped the smile, thinking up the way the stranger held himself.  _ he was definitely tall...no he was kind of short. no he was medium height. _ so he moved on from his posture and onto his skin.  _ light. of course it was light. but maybe that was just the spotlight on him. _ changbin tried to reach out and get a grasp on the boy who he used to be so good at thinking of, but found himself only pushing it further away.  _ he was perfect to me. so it was a toothy smile, a tall figure, and light skin. right? _

“changbin, what’s wrong? you look distressed.” came minho’s voice.

he looked up at his friend, trying so hard to just  _ remember _ but only forgetting even more. it awakened a panicking feeling in his chest. the boy was like a mix of coloured paints in a can, and changbin was stirring it too fast that it quickly became another dull shade of brown.

“i-i can’t remember him.”

minho placed an arm around his shoulder in an attempt to comfort him, but it only brought out tears. neither knew exactly why he was crying, but they let it happen. it’d been so long since changbin cried in front of anyone, after all.

“i lost my muse and my distraction. it infuriates me,” he wailed out, knowing that was a bigger reaction than necessary. “who’s supposed to give me butterflies now?”

his friend listened for many more minutes on the bench, and changbin cried just as long. that admiration he possessed for the boy was his only way to forget the pile of his troubles that he had been collecting for so long

the thing was, whenever changbin thought of the stranger, he would imagine some god-tier handsome face, but he thought the boy was so perfect that eventually his own preferences distorted his image of him. soon enough he couldn’t even remember what his cinderella looked like.

thus, the pile came crashing down onto minho.

~

the first time changbin didn’t need to think about him was sunday night.

chan had sensed something was wrong with him and found it fitting to take him out. changbin didn’t need to say anything for him to pick up on it, and it left the boy feeling immensely grateful to have chan as his close friend.

“there’s a friend i want you to meet,” the older boy said, pushing him down the sidewalk. “i don’t know what’s got you down, but he’ll definitely make things better.”

loud thumping of music shook changbin as they approached the sound of cheering.  _ another festival, _ changbin mentally sighed at the familiar scent of food wafting through the air. 

what chan was doing for him was sweet, it really was, but it brought up some sort of hope that the boy would be there. it was a silly thought. all changbin wanted to do in that moment was to crush that hope under his shoe and kick whatever was left of it onto the busy road. he didn’t want to keep living in a fairy tale anymore.

the pair came to a stop in front of yet another large group of people circling around what changbin assumed was a dance group. the situation felt painfully near to the festival two weeks before for changbin, the main difference being he wasn’t propped up on a bench trying to see over heads. 

“okay, so i know you can’t see anything but i’m pretty sure this is his last song, so hold on.” chan leaned in to whisper above the noise. changbin nodded.

he spent a few minutes staring at his shoes and following along the loops of his shoelaces before the crowd started to disappear. he made no move to look up, choosing instead to just listen to the two sets of footsteps approaching. 

maybe it wasn’t really a good idea of changbin to come along after all. his brain felt heavy, weighing down on his neck, and he didn’t want to lift it up, not even for chan’s friend who he knows could never be the boy he was looking for.

“hi, you must be-” a low voice rang, but changbin didn’t wait around for the disappointment to hit.

eyes not lifting, changbin turned on his heel and stomped away before he could cry again.

he felt foolish. why was he so smitten with someone he never knew? and why did it bring him down this hard? changbin kept asking himself these questions, but deep down he already knew the answers. he was sick of the way his life was a routine, a routine done without purpose or meaning. discovering his love for music brought him on a high but it only lasted him a year or so before he realised there was something missing.

changbin always listened to his friends talk, and they talked a lot. chan had a million friends, always taking care of everyone else as if he was the father of their crazy family. hyunjin always tried to brush it off, but he was a prince. all the boys and all the girls trailed after him like a bunch of lovesick fools, and he could have his pick of the litter but still he always came back to seungmin and jeongin. They were so close, those three. they had everything they needed when they were together. and then there was minho and jisung. there was a love there that wasn’t like any between the rest of the group. they denied it, took it as a joke, but it was there alright, and it was the sweetest thing to watch it bloom.

so yeah, changbin knew what was missing. he didn’t have a best friend. he didn’t have admirers. he didn’t have soulmates. he didn’t have  _ love _ . a small part of him was hoping this beautiful stranger could’ve been it.

changbin stopped at the curb and sat on the edge of the concrete with his chin resting on his knees. the music was still playing loudly, but he didn’t need to hear in order to know chan was coming up behind him.

"hyung, i'm sorry i've been a bit of a downer recently but i guess i realised how lonely i was before." he spoke at the ground before chan could begin. "and i know i have you guys to surround me, but maybe i just want to be someone's first choice."

"that's...a lot. but i'm guessing chan hyung was the one who was supposed to hear that."

a low voice. a voice that wasn't chan's. then from the corner of his eyes he could see sneakers. sneakers that weren't chan's either. 

the boy who changbin knew was chan's solution-friend sat down on the curb next to him in silence. neither spoke for a solid minute, not wanting to disrupt the comfort, and neither looked at the other too. they just soaked in each other's presence as if they were already well acquainted.

"i'm felix, i'm a stranger, and i'm willing to listen to your whole 'first-choice' inner conflict." 

"thanks, felix."

and then changbin looked up for the first time since he got at the festival and wished he had looked up before. like a defibrillator, that head of orange hair instantly brought him back to life.

the can of mixed paints was coming undone and suddenly he could see every colour the way they were meant to be seen in the first place. tanned skin that the sun clearly loved, freckle-scattered cheeks like infinite universes, the tiniest imperfections adding to the mosaic that felix was. all of changbin’s daydreams were rendered useless compared to the feeling he got knowing the boy he missed was never that far. just a smile shy of being taken back to the day he first laid eyes on him.

“you.” changbin breathed out. 

"i'm sorry, have we met?" felix asked softly, looking almost guilty that he couldn't remember any previous encounter, but changbin waved a hand in dismissal.

"no," he chose to say instead, "i would remember. you have the type of face i should never forget."

changbin watched as felix's lips pulled into a subtle grin, almost but not quite the same as the one he beared two weeks ago. he wanted to say something, anything, just to get him happy enough to see it again, because that smile had been the coping method that changbin's brain always led him back to and he could use that final boost.

felix stood up and brushed loose gravel off his backside before offering a hand to help changbin up. his fingers were small in comparison to changbin's and likely in comparison to any one else's as well, but their hands fit well together, even just for the sliver of time where they were holding onto each other.

changbin reluctantly pulled away as soon as he stood upright, then turned his head to find chan approaching with a victorious look in his eyes, giving away the fact that changbin had unknowingly softened his expressions.

"i see you've met changbin," chan chuckled at felix. "and I also see you've successfully cheered him up."

the freckled boy looked back at changbin and squinted his eyes quizzically.

"cheered him up? his face still looks pretty neutral to me." 

"that's just how he can be." the oldest boy patted the pair on their shoulders. “now, i’m gonna go get us some food. don’t worry, i know both of your favourites.”

changbin watched him walk away with the hint of a skip in his step towards the line formed in front of a food stall. he wondered if chan had known all along who felix was to him or if it was just some sort of supernatural friendship sense that he had. either way, he was immensely grateful.

“so,” felix softly nudged changbin’s arm. “you wanna rant?”

changbin stood for three seconds considering his options carefully. he asked himself how bizarre it would be for felix if his rant was majorly about him despite never meeting him previously. although this boy didn’t seem like the type to scare easily, changbin decided against it for the mean time.

“don’t let me kill the mood. raincheck?” he asked, cracking a soft smile. 

felix blinked. then blinked once more

“raincheck.”

and then he smiled back. not the smile changbin imagined when he was bored in class or the smile he imagined when insomnia threw away his 2ams. no, this smile was real and right in front of him; this smile was a million times better.


End file.
